


NOT ENOUGH ROOM FOR YOUR EGO AND ME

by missilemuse



Series: "Skyfall"..."Done." [1]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond (Movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Action, Alternate History, Angst, BAMF Q, Backstory, Banter, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Romance, bamf bond
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-29
Updated: 2013-02-01
Packaged: 2017-11-27 10:47:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/661102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missilemuse/pseuds/missilemuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>There were a lot of things he wanted to say. He wanted to say that however they may look at it, that to an extent Bond was to blame for M’s death, that Q’s hands were stained with her blood because he had blindly trusted Bond to do the right thing and he had fucked up royally. That Bond was responsible for the vacuum of trust that existed around Q’s position as a Quartermaster, because he would be forever remembered in the annals of M16 history as the Q who had stood by and let M die in the first month of his appointment.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>But he stopped himself because despite all the rational logic and the probability figures, he knew that they needed Bond out there. Because out in the field, outcomes were determined by split second decisions and gut instincts, probabilities be damned. The rule of thumb was ‘survival of the fittest’. And no one knew how to survive better than the man in front of him. <em></em></em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. NOT ENOUGH ROOM FOR YOUR EGO AND ME

**Author's Note:**

> And just because I simply have no time in my life for another fandom, one had to fall right into my lap. I was helpless in the face of the chemistry Bond and Q shared on-screen (for not even FIVE BLOODY MINUTES). This story is an outlet for the resultant frustration. Unbetaed or britpicked, so feel free to point out any errors.

“I’m in,” Bond whispered as he slipped into the room like a ghost. Only ghosts didn’t need to use windows.

“Nice decor,” he continued as he saw the freshly stuffed Bengal Tiger in front of the fireplace. The opulent room stank of old leather and wet fur.

“Mr. Jacobs is still at the opera,” said the quiet voice in his ear. “You have plenty of time. However you are expected to proceed with caution. The subject is a natural with home-made explosives in addition to being an illegal taxidermist. You may find an unanticipated booby trap that you may very well avoid by not resorting to your usual ham-fisted shenanigans.”

“Oh Q, where would I be if I didn’t have you bringing me down to earth?” Bond murmured, eyes scanning the room slowly as he slipped on a pair of gloves. “I assume you’re getting this.”

“Stop,” the command was clinical. “Three inches to the left.”

Bond turned so that his tie-pin pointed to the area requested. “What is it?”

There was a sharp exhale in his ear. “There you are my beauty”

Bond stared at his full-length reflection in the huge mirror. “Why, thank you Quartermaster. Though I confess that I would have preferred ‘rugged’ or ‘handsome’ as a compliment.”

“007,” Bond couldn’t tell if the voice was at all embarrassed. “If you would care to look beyond your own perfection for a minute, you would be able to retrieve the canister from the hiding place that’s just to the left of the mirror.”

Bond looked at the suggested site to find five inch teeth jutting in his direction.

“It’s a stuffed bear.”

There was a soft sigh in his ear, “Yes, thank you for pointing out the obvious. However, more to the point, the bear head is that of an Ursus americanus or the common black bear, but the body is that of Selenarctos thibetanus, more commonly known as the Asiatic black bear. Ergo, the ‘stuffed bear’ head is definitely detachable. This was something I had suspected with the initial surveillance photographs, but I needed a closer look for visual confirmation. Go on, get it off. I couldn’t possibly make it any easier for you.”

Bond used an ornate footstool to stand on and reach the head. Only a slight push had it unscrewed in his hands. He overturned the head to find a hollowed cavity with a small canister the size of a Pepsi can with a green blinking light on.

“Well, that’s that. Congratulations, 007. I’ll see you when you return the bomb to Q Branch.”

Then there was nothing but silence as Bond stood staring at the blinking merry green light.

 

***

 

Q hadn’t gone home for the last three days. He was simultaneously supervising a hacking in Turkey, countdown to a bombing in Syria and an extraction in Lebanon. The extraction was top priority. It was 48 hours in and every passing hour was reducing Agent 004’s chances for survival drastically.

So the last thing he needed was an angry agent charging through the door to slam a decidedly delicate bomb on his desk. Q blinked tiredly and found himself battling an icy-blue gaze. Bond didn’t bother lowering his voice, “I’ve had enough of this shit.”

Q’s answering smile was lopsided, “I concur.”

Bond looked like he was an inch from smashing his face in. Q wondered if he would be allowed to take off his glasses if the threat became real.

“I’ve had enough of being treated like a bloody invalid. THIS was a disgraceful excuse for a ‘mission’. I should be out there looking for 004. You need me out there.”

“The suspect was a known bomber…”

“Cut the bullshit, Q. You knew exactly where the bomb was. And I’m not a dog with whom you can play fetch.”

Q felt an overwhelming desire to let his shoulders slump for a minute, to simply rest his forehead against the cool desktop to organize his thoughts. He held his back up straight through conscious effort. As far as Bond was concerned, he was a spotty kid playing with cool toys with no regards to the consequences. As he told himself repeatedly, the man’s opinion didn’t matter. But there was no point giving the agent added ammunition by displaying any physical weakness in his presence.

“You have recently suffered a deep personal loss. You have failed both the subsequent psych exam and medicals. Your shooting score is 23. The probability that you would be successful in a level red mission without having regained your ability to shoot straight is 0.004%. Sending you to retrieve 004 would only double the body count. And if you could simply put aside your massive ego, you would see that I’m trying to help you. I had to beg them to send you on this ‘pathetic excuse for a mission’. But if you think your word is better than mine,” he gestured towards the door, “Feel free to go over my head. But kindly spare me for now. I have no time to deal with your tantrums.”

Bond gaze was like a razor. “If these were the old days-”

“Well, these  ** _aren’t_**. You’ll find that the new order prefers to do things by the book.”

Q stopped there. There were a lot of things he wanted to say. He wanted to say that however they may look at it, that to an extent Bond was to blame for M’s death, that Q’s hands were stained with her blood because he had blindly trusted Bond to do the right thing and he had fucked up royally. That Bond was responsible for the vacuum of trust that existed around Q’s position as a Quartermaster, because he would be forever remembered in the annals of M16 history as the Q who had stood by and let M die in the first month of his appointment.

But he stopped himself because despite all the rational logic and the probability figures, he knew that they needed Bond out there. Because out in the field, outcomes were determined by split second decisions and gut instincts, probabilities be damned. The rule of thumb was ‘survival of the fittest’. And no one knew how to survive better than the man in front of him.

Bond should have been out there to extract Agent Swenson.

He simply turned back to his console and continued typing. There were only ten minutes left before the bomb in Syria went off. He barely stopped himself from flinching as the door slammed behind the retreating man.

 

***

 

“Go home.”

“Sir,” Q started as though from a daze. “I was just-”

M’s eyes raked over his stubble “You haven’t taken a break for over forty hours. Agent 004’s retrieval has been completed successfully. Nothing else is so pressing that it requires your physical presence here.”

Q had spoken with the head of the medical team bringing Swenson home. ‘Successful’ was a matter of opinion. Someone who had lost one eye and had bilateral fractured kneecaps may not agree with him. He pressed his fingers firmly against the desk to stop the tremor running through them. “We were too slow. I…was too- We need 007 back in the field, M. He would have found her sooner.”

Mallory’s eyes were implacable. “You know what your own projections say. We would have lost them both. We cannot lose Bond. He is too valuable.”

“What you cannot do is treat a racehorse like a pack mule. He needs missions worthy of his level of insanity.”

“After what happened at Skyfall-”

Q was at the end of his tether and at the mention of his worst failure, something in him just snapped. “Silva had held an entire island ransom and you hadn’t even known he was still alive. If 007’s plan had been successful, which it nearly was, you would have been singing a different tune. Or rather, the old M would’ve been. She knew betting on Bond would pay off. As far as she was concerned, stopping Silva was the parameter that determined the failure or success of the mission. She would never have agreed to be the bait otherwise.”

“I have never implied that either you or 007 were responsible for the outcome at Skyfall.”

“By grounding him, you might as well be screaming it from the rooftops. Give him the mission in Israel or you’ll have a mutiny on your hands. And I’m not just speaking for 007 here.”

M simply looked at him, eyebrows raised. “Your faith in Bond is gratifying. I would’ve assumed that after your last association, you would have had a harder time trusting him.”

Q swallowed. “Your assumption is correct. I was just coming to the second part of my request. I don’t think me handling 007 in the field is a good idea. I want permission to have someone else assigned to handle 007 out in the field, anyone but me.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“If you are the one handling my assignments henceforth, I’ll even throw in a bouquet with a dozen red roses.” The grin he threw Q was charming, like a swaying cobra._
> 
> _Q took a step back, feeling completely wrong-footed. “Excuse me!” ___

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Neither James Bond nor Q belong to me. If only!

As Q stood in front of the glass walled medical bay the next morning before heading to Q branch watching an unconscious 004, he felt that he had won at least one important battle the day before. R was a good handler. She was decisive, calm under pressure and nearly chomping at the bit to work with 007, just as he had been a few months back.

Although Q had held the title for barely a month, his predecessor had been grooming him for nearly a year to take over his job. The shrewd old man had known that M was being pressurised to step down and he had every intention of throwing in his lot with her. He had decided that Q would succeed him, the day he had rescued the ex-dropout junkie from being incarcerated for life.

Skyfall had taught Q that training could only prepare you so much for the real thing. When he had plugged Silva’s drive into the system, he could almost hear the old man tutting at his shoulder. _“What was rule no. 1, boy? Did I teach you nothing?”_

TRUST NO ONE. It was the one golden rule, the rule of thumb. Had his old teacher not been blown to smithereens by Silva, he would have been turning over in his grave at Q’s blunders.

“Only machines cannot lie, m’ boy. The rest of the world is going to fuck you left, right and centre. Don’t trust anyone, sometimes not even yourself.” He had gestured at the shining consoles surrounding them at the old HQ. “Meet your new best friends. We are in the business of uncovering the truth and there’s only one absolute. Numbers don’t lie.”

Q had always been ‘boy’ to his mentor, the old Q. He had had a name once but it had faded away into obscurity just like his old self. The letters R and now Q had earned him his place in the world. He had been so tired at the ripe old age of twenty, fighting the innate human need to be accepted, not by imbeciles like his Uni classmates, but by someone…anyone who could comprehend what true genius was.

Drugs had made the clamour inside his head easier to handle and routine jobs like hacking into the system to change his fellow students’ grades had kept him in enough cash for his daily hits.

But the drugs only took the edge off. One day, they simply weren’t enough. As a final cry of protest against the clamour of constant boredom, he took a dose double his usual and then hacked into the M16 mainframe. He had assumed he would not be sticking around to face the consequences.

He had woken up to bright lights in a state of the art medical centre within the bowels of M16 with clean, masked faces hovering above his own. The horror of impending withdrawal was completely obscured by the terrifying uncertainty of what was going to happen to him.

When the old Q had visited, his future teacher’s first words to him had been, “Boy, there is nothing you could’ve done that would’ve been more criminal than destroying that magnificent brain. The code you used was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

Q had held on to these words like a talisman as he went through withdrawal followed by training under the watchful eye of his old mentor. M had fully expected him to relapse. He defied expectations as he simply rose from strength to strength. She did not understand. The drugs had been necessary to hold him back. There was no need to hold himself back anymore.

He was pitted against the finest hackers in the world. His offensive tactical strategies were already formidable and he slowly became skilled at defensive coding as well. R knew he was doing something right when he underwent a ‘friendly’ abduction in the fourth month of his appointment, where the CIA made him a counter offer he would’ve been insane to refuse.

But refuse he did, which was when he realised that he was more patriotic than he would’ve ever given himself credit for.

When he had returned to Q Branch after the supposedly covert ‘kidnapping’, the old Q had handed him his first assignment as a handler for 005. He loved the new facet of his job, though admittedly there were a few side-effects of working with human beings again. Q had shrugged off the few failures. There were new lessons to learn everyday. He revelled in the forbidden knowledge.

Everything about the missions slowly became routine. The life or death stakes were a part of the job for the double o’s, but losing or letting down an agent Q was personally handling never became old. As he completed handling one successful mission after another, he had his eyes on the prize.

Agent James Bond, code 007, was always handled by the erstwhile Q and no one else. When he had enquired the reason why, the old Q had eyed him appraisingly, “You’ll get your turn, boy. There will come a time when you’ll fondly remember the days when you weren’t affected by his existence and at the same time you’ll crave handling his next assignment.” Q couldn’t wait to prove that he was up to the task.

But the man had gone and ‘died’. Bond’s funeral was the only time Q had seen the old man cry.

And now recently learned painfully, exactly what the old man had meant as he watched the footage of the flames at Skyfall attempting to lick the sky on his computer screen. He had loved every minute of working with the maverick _(oh who was he kidding!),_ borderline insane agent, had loved bending the rules to ensure the survival of his charge. It took more than just skill to handle 007. It took an incredible level of adaptability, of being prepared to expect disasters (in plural) at every turn.

What it definitely did not need was the presence of an unconscious attraction for James bloody Bond.

Which was what had shocked Q – his own reaction, the feeling of intense relief as the M16 evac team first to reach Skyfall had reported that M had died, but Bond had survived against all odds. Well, relief had been his first reaction. The second had been _‘What the fuck!’_

Q took a deep breath as he turned away from the med centre. He had made the right call of passing Bond on to someone else. He had already made the mistake of getting involved with an agent once. And Q was a man who learned from his mistakes.

 

***

 

R’s meeting with M and Bond had been scheduled for 10.00 a.m. Q was in his office, coding a Trojan to be inserted within a communication meant for an extremist Middle Eastern cartel. He was so engrossed in the task that he did not even notice R standing outside waiting, which wasn’t surprising in itself. No one interrupted Q when he was coding. When he did notice her, he was unpleasantly shocked. It was 1 p.m. Bond’s flight for Israel was supposed to leave at 1. What the hell was his handler doing here?

Only when he had muted his screen, did he notice the red rimmed eyes and the smudged mascara. She dropped a neatly typed sheet on his desk with shaky hands, but her voice was alarmingly steady, “I’m sorry Q. But I’m here to give my resignation.”

 

***

 

“What the fuck did you say to her?” It had been his turn to slam doors on the way to 007’s office.

…who had the gall to tip his chair back a few more inches and smirk at him nonchalantly, before turning his attention back to the keyboard nestled in his lap, which he was using to play bleeding Solitaire of all things.

“It was your fault,” he implied in a slow and taunting voice. The smirk had a taunting edge now.

Q had sworn that he would never deal with Bond with his masks down. He was quivering with suppressed rage, his own rule broken. M’s office had been his first stop, but Mallory had been equally consternated. Apparently in M’s presence, Bond had accepted the change quite amicably. Whatever he had said to R later was about to cost Q a very good programmer.

“Listen, you arrogant arse, I don’t care if M thinks that the sun rises and sets on you. You are going to march down to Q Branch this instant and apologise to R or I’ll ensure that you’ll regret it.”

Bond set the keyboard back on the desk and got up in one smooth motion, reaching for his coat draped on the back of the chair. “Lead the way,” he announced, slipping on the coat in one smooth motion.

Q had just built up steam, and this response stopped him in his tracks. He blinked owlishly at 007. “ ** _You_** are willing to apologise.”

“If you are the one handling my assignments henceforth, I’ll even throw in a bouquet with a dozen red roses.” The grin he threw Q was charming, like a swaying cobra.

Q took a step back, feeling completely wrong-footed. “Excuse me!”

“Well, if you’re intending to make me ‘regret’ my actions, it can only be when **_you_** are overseeing me in the field, and not some greenhorn do-gooder with daddy issues. As that’s decided and that was exactly what I wanted to happen, I have no qualms whatsoever making up to your minion. But just to lay boundaries, am I allowed to sleep with her? It will make the apology a whole lot easier for me.”

Q experienced a jolt of intense loathing as he imagined tearing the man to tiny pieces and running them through the paper shredder. He stalked out of the office. This time he was sure the glass on the office door had cracked on impact.

 

***

 

It was late evening, not that you had any way to tell that inside the ‘new’ Q branch. Q was nursing a pounding headache as he cradled his cup of Earl Grey, looking for all intents and purposes like he was staring at the screen with intent concentration. But all he was thinking about was how easily Bond had got under his skin. His musings were interrupted by a polite knock on the door.

He looked up to see 007 standing at the threshold with both arms raised in a gesture of universal surrender. “I come in peace,” he said, one eyebrow raised sardonically.

When Q said nothing, he simply walked in seating himself on the corner of his desk. “R is not leaving any longer. You’ll be happy to know that she received an effusive apology from my end with no sexual overtures whatsoever.” There was a loaded pause, “Q, I think we may have gotten off on the wrong foot at the museum and I’ll concede to my share of the blame for the same if you accept yours.”

Q laughed as he rubbed his hands over his eyes tiredly, “I’m too exhausted for games, 007. So do me a favour and lay your cards on the table. If I remember correctly, it was you who had insinuated that I was a spotty kid with dubious competence. An opinion I must have cemented in stone with Skyfall. I thought, quite rationally I’m afraid that you’d welcome any opportunity to not work with me. Now suddenly you want me? What made you change your mind?”

In answer, Bond placed and old fashioned recorder on his desk and switched it on. Q found himself staring into the cool blue eyes as his own voice echoed in the room.

" _We were too slow. I…was too- We need 007 back in the field, M. He would have found her sooner…..What you cannot do is treat a racehorse like a pack mule. He needs missions worthy of his level of insanity.”_

This was the point, where Q should have been incoherent with rage. But he managed a strangled whisper, “You…you had the gall to bug my work-station!”

“What did you expect? That I should’ve waited for your permission before going after 004? I needed data. If hadn’t found her when you did, I was already enroute to Heathrow to board the next flight to Beirut.

Q forgot to be angry as he slumped over his desk, massaging his forehead with both hands, “Jesus, Bond! You spied on me. You’re as good as telling me that you never believed that I could extract Swenson. Yet you want me to be the voice in your ear? Is it an ego issue? That no one other than the erstwhile quartermaster would do for the great James Bond? I’ll ask M to demote me if that’s the-”

“Q, in all of my time here, do you know how many people within this organization have shown blind faith in me? There have only been three and I’ve had to watch them all die one after another.”

Q slowly lowered the hand covering his eyes. Bond wasn’t even looking at him. Instead he was concentrating at a point above his shoulder with a faraway look in his eyes. “And somehow, you remind me of all three of them. You’re idealistic and surprisingly innocent like Mathis, tough and shrewdly brilliant like Boothroyd and stupidly stubborn like M.”

The twin ice-blue chips within the weathered brown face pinned him again and Q felt a shiver tingle down his spine. “The first time you flouted protocol to let me leave with M could have been… misplaced hero-worship, a rookie mistake by someone who hadn’t worked with me before. But this… a ringing endorsement from the last person I had ever expected to receive it from.” He leaned forward, looming over Q, fixing him with that arctic blue gaze. “I need that faith from my handler when I’m out in the field. I need my guide to trust me, to believe that I’m doing the right thing, even if it may not look like that in that moment.”

Q swallowed as he realised that Bond was echoing the ‘ringing endorsement’ with respect to his still spotty quartermaster.

Bond took a deep breath before dropping his gaze and getting off the desk. He paused at the door but didn’t turn around. “I do not presume to force anyone to be my handler, Q. I’m leaving for Tel Aviv at oh two hundred in the morning and I would really appreciate it, if you would handle the mission. If you still don’t want to, I’ll manage on my own. I usually have to.”

The silence in his wake was loud.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> p.s. Craig fans would recognize the title as an extract from a dialogue by Vesper in 'Casino Royale', when she angrily shuts the hotel lift door in Bond's face.


End file.
